Archive for category Threat Watch

Al-Qaeda in Syria

From Aljazeera:

Al-Qaeda fighters have struck a bloody blow in scenes of medieval violence in Syria’s northern border-town of Jarabulus. Fighting came to a head on January 17, between rebel groups Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade and the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the town, when reinforcements arrived from Raqqa and reclaimed the city in a brutal four-hour battle.

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Obama Officials Cried ‘Terrorism’ to Cover Up a Paperwork Error

This shows just how far the Obama administration will go to cover up even the slightest of mistakes. Trampling on the constitution and the rights of individuals is just the work-a-day world of the 44th President of the United States.

From: Wired.com

What happened next was the real shame. Instead of admitting to the error, high-ranking President Barack Obama administration officials spent years covering it up. Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and a litany of other government officials claimed repeatedly that disclosing the reason Ibrahim was detained, or even acknowledging that she’d been placed on a watch list, would cause serious damage to the U.S. national security. Again and again they asserted the so-called “state secrets privilege” to block the 48-year-old woman’s lawsuit, which sought only to clear her name.

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Head of DHS Says Syria a Threat to U.S. Security

From MilitaryTimes.com:

Johnson said he and other law enforcement and security officials around the world were focused on foreign fighters heading to the bloody war, including those from the United States, Canada and Europe.

U.S. intelligence officials have said a handful of Americans and hundreds of Europeans have already returned to their home countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the topic.

Syria isn’t the problem, it’s the people who traveled there and are now in this country.

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Privacy at the Olympics

From Silent Circle:

Russian authorities have openly acknowledged that widespread monitoring of phone, Internet and other communications systems is in place during the games and have framed these measures as part of overall security preparedness. Safety and security aside, this degree of persistent surveillance creates severe risks for visitors worried about sensitive personal and business communications being compromised when they keep in touch with colleagues and others from Sochi. There have been a number of stories over the past week warning that visitors and athletes can expect to be hacked, noting “it isn’t a mater of ‘if,” but a matter of ‘when.’”

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Google Removes Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

From: EFF

Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.

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Android App Warns When You’re Being Watched

From: MIT

Researchers find a way to give Android users prominent warnings when apps are tracking their location.

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Triton UAV

From Wired.com:

With its 130-foot wingspan, Triton will provide high-altitude, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from a sensor suite that supplies a 360-degree view at a radius of over 2,000 nautical miles, allowing monitoring from higher and farther away than any of its competitors.

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News Orginazation Attempting To Create Blacklist of CCW Holders Reverses Stance

From Fox News:

A national newspaper chain never intended to create a multi-state database of gun owners with permits allowing them to carry concealed weapons according to its top executive, who told FoxNews.com a “poorly crafted” internal memo erroneously indicated such an idea was being planned.

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China Testing Hypersonic Missiles

From The Washington Free Beacon:

The test of the new hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out Jan. 9 and the experimental weapon is being dubbed the WU-14 by the Pentagon, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The hypersonic vehicle represents a major step forward in China’s secretive strategic nuclear and conventional military and missile programs.

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Secure Mobile Phone: Blackphone

The company Silent Circle which makes encrypted communication apps for mobile phones will soon release its own hardware called the Blackphone on Feb. 24. It is designed from the ground up to be a secure and encrypted method of communication. They are designing the hardware and creating their own secure version of the Andriod OS.

Press release:

Blackphone, powered by a security-oriented Androidâ„¢ build named PrivatOS, is a carrier- and vendor-independent smartphone giving individuals and organizations the ability to make and receive secure phone calls, exchange secure texts, transfer and store files, and video chat without compromising user privacy on the device.

It is the culmination of several careers’ worth of effort from leading figures in the industry, including Phil Zimmermann, creator of PGP; Javier Aguera, co-founder of Geeksphone; Jon Callas, co-founder of PGP Inc. and CTO of Silent Circle; Rodrigo Silva-Ramos, co-founder of Geeksphone; and Mike Janke, CEO of Silent Circle and former US Navy SEAL.

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Mark Steyn: Know Thine Enemy

From National Review Online:

On December 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked. Three years, eight months, and eight days later, the Japanese surrendered. These days, America’s military moves at a more leisurely pace. On November 5, 2009, another U.S. base, Fort Hood, was attacked — by one man standing on a table, screaming “Allahu akbar!” and opening fire. Three years, nine months, and one day later, his court-martial finally got under way.

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Sochi 2014: A Security Challenge

Sochi 2014: A Security Challenge is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

Summary

The Russian city of Sochi will host the 2014 Winter Olympics from Feb. 7 to Feb. 23 and the Paralympics from March 7 to March 16. Russia is no stranger to hosting high-profile global events; it hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics and is preparing for the 2018 World Cup final.

Though the 2014 games seemingly offer Moscow a perfect platform for showcasing the strength of its security apparatus, Russia will have to work overtime to protect athletes and spectators. This in turn could leave surrounding regions such as the Northern Caucasus and major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg exposed to militancy, terrorism and organized crime. Militants from the Caucasus striking elsewhere in Russia during the games to avoid the intense security that will be present in Sochi and to capitalize on news coverage of the highly publicized event pose the greatest threat to the games. Read the rest of this entry »

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Two Foreign Techers Found Dead In Libya

From Al Jazeera:

“The bodies of a British man and a New Zealand woman who had been killed by bullets were found on the beach in Mellitah on Thursday afternoon,” said another source. They were found next to their luggage, but their belongings were not stolen and the motive for their killing was unclear.

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Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists

Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Scott Stewart

Editor’s Note: The following is the first installment of a five-part series examining the global jihadist movement. Part 2 analyzes insurgent and terrorist theory. Part 3 defines the jihadist movement and evaluates its various elements. Part 4 looks at franchises and grassroots jihadists and Part 5 scrutinizes the al Qaeda core as well as gauging the overall implications for security. 

Quite often when I am doing speaking engagements, client briefings or press interviews, I am asked questions like: “Given the events in Syria and Libya, is the jihadist movement stronger than ever?” It is a good question, but it is also one that is not easily answered in a five-second sound bite or a succinct quote for print media — it really requires some detailed explanation. Because of this, I’ve decided to take some time to provide a more thorough treatment of the subject in written form for Stratfor readers. As I thought through the various aspects of the topic, I came to believe that adequately covering it requires more than one Security Weekly, so I will dedicate a series of articles to it.

When gauging the current state of the jihadist movement, I believe it is useful to use two different standards. The first is to take jihadists’ goals and objectives and measure their progress toward achieving them. The second is to take a look at insurgent theory and terrorism models to see what they can tell us about the state of jihadist militant networks and their efforts. This week we will discuss the first standard: the jihadists’ goals and objectives. Next week we will discuss insurgency and terrorism theories, and then once we have established these two benchmarks we can use them to see how the various elements of the jihadist movement measure up. Read the rest of this entry »

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RSA Paid $10 Million By NSA To Keep Backdoor In Crypto

From Ars Technica:

Security company RSA was paid $10 million to use the flawed Dual_EC_DRBG pseudorandom number generating algorithm as the default algorithm in its BSafe crypto library, according to sources speaking to Reuters.

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